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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.